Video Spotlight: What Being Non-Binary Means to Me

“I like to refer to myself as a pretty boy. That’s how I feel. That’s how I want to be.”

In this sit-down chat with his audience, pastel dream Caspian Okazaki describes his complex gender experience. Although he uses he/him pronouns and is taking a traditional ‘female-to-male’ transition route, Caspian is nonbinary. In this video, he talks about the unique issues that he faces as a nonbinary person who wants to be read as “masculine” while dressing in a way that many see as “feminine.”

Caspian has talked before about his gender identity and expression in various videos, including in a discussion about his identity as a demiboy; a demiboy is a nonbinary gender identity that is often described as partially male and partially something else, or masculine aligned but not entirely male.

In this video, Caspian discusses how, ultimately, his goal is to be read by strangers as male, using he/him pronouns and preferring a more masculine silhouette with his clothes. However, he feels that in his current point in transition he is instead read as a “queer, masculine woman.” Despite wanting to be read as male by strangers, he still strongly identifies as nonbinary and describes himself as a “pretty boy.”

Caspian is clear that, though he has discovered ways of expressing his identify in ways that feel authentic to him, other nonbinary people will have a completely different experience. “I am one person on the spectrum,” he acknowledged. “It’s not right on me to try and define non-binary for everyone. It’s up to the individual to express themselves how they feel and label themselves the way they truly feel.”

From politics to simply existing in public places, the trans community is still subject to immense scrutiny. Caspian’s video is a wonderful example of someone expressing their true self and introducing the world to people outside of the male-female binary. Hopefully, discussions like this, as well as the recent phenomenal fundraising by Harry Brewis aka Hbomberguy for UK transgender youth charity Mermaids, will spark a wave of positive content in and about the trans community.

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